in the sea of memory
by ncfan
Summary: There is salt on every inch of her. /Spoilers./


In my mind, Yasuda Sayo refers to herself with female pronouns because she was raised female. Her biological sex and the gender she actually identifies as is a whole other can of worms, and I'm not getting into it here.

I own nothing.

* * *

There is salt on her fingernails, salt on her lips. There is salt on the edges of her eyelids, stinging her eyes. Salt makes her skin rough and her hair coarse—the unforgiving sunlight of this rocky seashore darkens one and lightens the other. None would recognize her for who she used to be, not even the creations of her own heart.

No one in the tiny village up above the rocks and the cliffs knows where this young woman came from, the young woman, body and mind utterly broken, came to live in the wrecked shell of what once was a fisherman's hut on the shore. No one asks questions, though. They bring her food every day. They bring her paper and pen when she asks for it, and she crouches over on the sandy floor of this hut, hunched like an old woman. Her hair grows long and tangled about her back, untamed, unkempt and uncared for, coarse from the salt and streaked with ugly dishwater blonde from the sun.

She should have died on the island when the bomb blew, or at least drowned in the ocean when she jumped. She has dreams of dying at night, when she's lying in the sand and the roll of the surf swallows her up from her heart outwards, the moonlight shoring up in her mouth. Dreams of going to a place where her twisted body doesn't matter, never mattered in the least, where it wouldn't have held her down or tied her to fear and lies and deceit. Where has that place gone, where everyone she knew and loved (and even the ones she didn't love) has gone? Where has that place where she would have been accepted gone?

She tells herself in these moments that it doesn't matter—after all, she'll be dead soon enough anyways. There are hollows at the very top of her cheeks, puckering each time she takes a breath. Her eyes gleam with the feverish light of the dreamer brought low and waiting for one last chance to fly.

_And then, I'll see them all again. I'll rest in peace for all eternity, in the Golden Land._

What no one will ever know about this young woman was that she had three children once.

Her oldest child was the recipient of all her hope, of the joy and terror of hope. Through her oldest, she could believe, even knowing deep down that it was impossible, that maybe she had a future, maybe there was a life waiting for her where she could be happy. That maybe she could love and be loved in return.

Her second was the inheritor of her anger. Her second desired the recognition that had been denied her for so long, desired an end to the denials, the ignorance, the long years of waiting and disappointment. Her second just wanted it all to end, and forged ahead with no regrets.

And to her youngest, the child closest to her heart, she gave all of her despair and self-loathing. She gave to her youngest the only things she had left to give. He was her other, her shadow half, the reflection of her despair. He was her conscience, the voice that told her that the solution was wrong and the voice that would never silence. He was the only one of her children who truly grasped exactly what it meant to be furniture. He was the one, the only one, who could see the truth for exactly what it was.

She emptied herself out to fill them all up, scooping out her insides, her essence, her very soul and fashioning them from the viscera as God had made Adam out of dust. But after a while, the lines began to blur between the three of them and her children rebounded upon their mother on that fateful night, becoming one again and leaving her to sort out all the things she had never wanted to face.

And at her hands, not those of her children, _her own_, she had torn apart the world that had caused her nothing but grief and fear, tore apart all the things she had built with lies and deceit, and had fully intended to die in the process, as penance, as release.

She did not die. Oh, how she wishes she had, but she did not die. She never dies, she's discovered—only sheds her skin like a snake and takes on a new role, no less painful or harrowing than the last.

But this young woman, the woman who lives in a wrecked hut by the sea, this body warped from infancy and glistening with foam and salt, has made a bargain with the universe. She walked into the sea, walked there up to her waist, and surrounded on all sides with sloshing water, and told it that she would tell the story of herself and her children, and what they all wrought, if it would let her die.

As expiation.

As atonement.

As flagellation, revealing the ugly truth at the core of herself to the whole world, in exchange for her death.

She sets pen to paper with the zealotry of the fanatic who's seen the light at the end of the tunnel, sustained on this even when she starts turning away the bowls of rice and loaves of bread the villagers bring her. (_"Bring me paper. More paper. I don't need food; I just need something to write on."_)

Perhaps she doesn't need to spell it out in plain terms. Perhaps she doesn't have to bare all in the plainest of terms. She'll tell her story, and those with love in their hearts and discerning eyes will be able to see the truth nestled in amongst all the gauzy veils and pretty façades.

If her words reach the eyes of just one person, who will not judge and condemn, but understand and forgive her, then that will be enough.

_She has finished her work, and stuffed them in a wine bottle to toss into the sea. In the bottle she also gently slides a bit of bleached bone, a tooth still clinging to one of the sockets. She signs them by a name not her own, knowing that this name will catch the attention of anyone who reads it._

_Her work is done, her life finally over, and she feels lighter than she has in years, like she was Atlas and the world has finally been lifted from her shoulders. She corks the bottle, and sheds the grayed rags that once were her clothes, letting them pool at her feet. When the next day dawns, no one will find anything but her clothes lying on the floor, as though naught but a spirit lived here and that spirit has gone back to the lands that lie far beyond human reach and understanding._

_Sun-browned skin bathed white into the moonlight, she emerges from the hut, totally naked. Wind raises the hairs on her skin, the foamy surf lapping at her feet. She smiles for the first time since that night, and with the strength that comes from no longer being afraid, walks into eternity._


End file.
